Tuesday, April 29, 2014

This is vastly amusing. John Scalzi has lobbied for Hugos for years,
on behalf of himself and others. This is the second year of Sad Puppies.
Charles Stross has openly engaged in what he calls "Shameless Hugo
nomination touting" and the Toad of Tor has publicly declared that
science fiction awards are nothing but "a giant signal saying 'this is
what we love, this is what we value'". Dozens of pinkshirts have primly announced that they don't intend to read anything by anyone of whom they disapprove.

And David Gerrold somehow
concludes that the politicization of science fiction is my fault?

Coming back to the starting point of the column -- if we accept that
science fiction awards should not be politicized, then the columnist is
blaming the wrong people. He should start by blaming Vox Day the guy who politicized this year's process in the first place.

Either Gerrold has lost it or I have powers far beyond my ken. For example, here is a Hugo-related post from 2010 that lists "Tor.com’s Hugo Award-eligible works" and pushes Tor novels, editors, and artists.

4. Irene Wednesday March 10, 2010 12:27pm EST
Hi Spera,

This post was meant to be specific to the works that Tor.com has published.

But that doesn’t mean would love for you to consider Tor novels, editors, and artists. You can check out the Tor corporate site here.

96 Comments:

Translation: he thinks you should shut up so you're politicizing. Everyone else is just "keeping it real" or whatever they're calling it these days. It's too bad, I remember Gerrold from years and years ago on the old CompuServe SF forum and he was okay back then.

Science fiction has always been political.Vox is responsible for politicizing science fiction.

The works should be judged for awards on merit.We shouldn't give an award to Vox because he'd regard it as validation of his political views.

How does this man's head not explode from the mutual exclusivity of these claims? Besides the fact that he apparently cannot separate the concepts of science fiction works dealing with politics from the politicization of sci fi fandom and awards processes, Gerrold is so clueless that he claims not to know much about Correia, who waged the Hugo Awards campaign, and instead blames it on Vox, who scarcely campaigned at all. Say what?!

Is there anything they don't turn into politics? I frequent a hockey blog that has a "no politics" rule (which seems to be enforced less and less) and without a doubt every time (or almost every time) politics is brought up, it's a progressive or a feminist. What's the best course of action? Argue against them? Move on to greener pastures? They have to ruin hockey with social justice.

And David Gerrold somehow concludes that the politicization of science fiction is all my fault?...For example, here is a Hugo-related post from 2010 that lists "Tor.com’s Hugo Award-eligible works" and pushes Tor novels, editors, and artists.

i would note a distinction between 'Hugo vote campaigning' and 'politicization of SF'.

both practices may be distasteful and the former is certainly used by the latter but they are not necessarily related.

Gerrold actually makes a good point about the TITLE of the USA piece.

but then -1 - the author of a newspaper column rarely has any input, MUCH LESS authority about what headline gets plastered on what he writes. the editor gets that privilege.2 - the critique has nothing to do with the argument made in the essay.

so Gerrold's attack on the headline amounts to strawmanning.

however, as i noted before, Gerrold is both a queer and leftist.

so his attacking of fake arguments that were never voiced ... doesn't really surprise me.

when he blames you he ALSO makes pretense that he is unaware of your treatment and political ejection by the SFWA.

seriously?

he's been an SFWA luminary since 1971 ... and i'm supposed to believe that he doesn't have any idea what's been going on for the last ~3 years or whatever?

remember when you were asking for greatest living SF writer nominees and i pointed out Gerrold ... as well as probable issues with him?

I remember I started reading a David Gerrold book some time ago and stopped reading near the beginning. I was trying to remember why, so I grabbed Under the Eye of God from a dusty old box in the garage and pulled out this nugget.

A naked young man – no, only a boy – just a little too young and a little too pretty, came running out the door carrying his clothes in his hands. He looked terrified. He came flying, skidding, tripping down the stairs. He slipped and skidded the last few steps.

Sawyer’s eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the voluptuous boy, but he let him pass. That’s not Murdock,” he decided. Apparently, this establishment kept a wider variety of erotic talents available for the entertainment of its guests than he had previously assumed.

I did business with Mr. Gerrold back in the 1990s. I found him to be a boor, a self-important braggart, and a pompous ass. This was my opinion, and is worth precisely what you paid for it, dear reader. Here endeth my remarks in re Gerrold.

Speaking generally: I don't hold a man accountable for accidents of birth and/or raising (e.g., being a Jew or having homosexual desires), but bad manners, flagrant Immorality, and a lack of humility are character flaws which mark the sort of man with whom I choose not to do business.

I could go on, but for legal reasons I will end my remarks with this truth: stereotypes are in many ways justified. Verb sap..

I don't think you can truly appreciate the neo-marxist mind unless you spend time around young kids. My 4 year old and his friends all like to try and change the rules mid game to benefit themselves. My 4 year old is also prone to inventing games then notifying you that you were playing and that he has already won.

Gerrold makes a complete knob of himself, starting with claiming to know nothing about Correia's political views but then declaiming that everything is the fault of people who - surprise surfuckingprise - disagree with Gerrold over politics.

But if he knows nothing about Correia's politics then he knows nothing about this whole subject and its recent history, because you cannot learn about this subject without learning about Correia's political views, so why is he pretending to know anything about it?

Because it gives him the chance to take a cheap shot at Vox Day.

I loved the early War Against the Chtorr books. Gerrold should get off his arse and finish the series instead of trash talking people who are actually delivering on their promises.

And then I made the mistake of following the link to his Facebook page. Apparently FDR and Lincoln - two of the most gratuitous warmongers in the long line of gratuitous warmongers that comprise the US Presidents - are still lionized by ignorant left-wing posers who haven't figured out that adhering to an inflexible laundry list of allegedly left-wing positions you received from Democrat apologists doesn't make you a liberal.

The problem there is they don't look at who spends money. When you add in DVD sales and merchandise purchasing a representative cast ought to be 11 men, 2 women. Of the 11 men. 8 should be white, 2 should be Asian, and 1 should be a light skinned Hispanic. Of the women, 1 should be white, and the other should be white with an ethnic grandparent, probably Asian.

I almost wanted to drop in the question "where are all the queers in this series? Shouldn't at least a quarter of the characters reflect the real world?" But I saw there were 712 comments already and didn't care enough to post another.

I don't think you can truly appreciate the neo-marxist mind unless you spend time around young kids. My 4 year old and his friends all like to try and change the rules mid game to benefit themselves. My 4 year old is also prone to inventing games then notifying you that you were playing and that he has already won.

Astute observation. I can't even count the number of people I've heard say something like: "I used to be a liberal before I grew up."

My 3 year old granddaughter was crying the other day because grandma, who was completely unaware of the contest, beat her to the front door.

When I clicked the link, I thought Gerrold sounded clueless and out of touch. But after reading it, he's clearly on the pink side. Welp, never overestimate them.

Prophetically enough, Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr series is about an alien ecological invasion by creepy pink fuzz. Included in this are the ...

"Bunnydogs/Bunnymen: Bipedal herbivores about a meter in height possessing roughly the same intelligence as chimps. Bunnydogs are covered in the same "fur" as the worms and resemble pink or red rabbit-eared teddybears. Some Bunnydogs eventually become Bunnymen—a variant of bunnydogs that lack that fur and are about half again as tall, making them resemble bipedal rats—with a disposition to match. All bunnydogs/bunnymen are male."

Haven't we seen something like that around here? And for predictive SF, that's pretty close.

As you read his Chtorr books after swallowing the red pill, you begin to see his leftist idealogy all over the place, but at least he puts it aside fairly well to write his characters. And at least he gets the gay characters correctly as queenish a holes. Must be writing from experience.

But the interesting thing is his diatribe (within the storyline) against agents and publishers. Or maybe it was a movie producer. Either way, it dovetails well into the ongoing issues with the editors and publishing houses abusing their struggling artists and robbing them of revenue. You'd think an author that could write that scene would be more sympathetic to a libertarian approach....

Might Mr. Gerrold be somewhat correct? I think Vox should take a little more credit for walking into the rabbit warren and causing a ruckus. After all, he did write a novelette and get nominated, which provided a contrasting alternative to the slate they intended and thereby causing them to agitate against him. If Vox would just go away, there would be no politicization because everyone would in line.

I was going to say what James Dixon did. According to all those on the Pink/Leftish side of SF/F, Vox, you are always to blame. You're like George W. Bush to the Democrats. No matter what happens or when, it's always your fault.

Whoa! I borrowed that book from my elementary school library in 3rd or 4th grade (1980 or '81). I remember it mainly because someone had first scribbled out all the bad words in pencil, then erased the scribbles, leaving them accentuated! I kept it hidden under my bed until returning it to the library because I was afraid my parents would find out I was reading a "bad" book!

I think Vox should take a little more credit for walking into the rabbit warren and causing a ruckus.

Except he did nothing of the sort to my knowledge. Rabbits didn't like him initially because he was not a rabbit. The one likened unto a half-savage attacked him because he ran for a professional office. McRapey went after him for...I don't know, existing and thereby proving Patricia Hayden Morphin Reindeer or whatever the hell his/her name is to be a tool. That community college teacher went after him for doing science. Me-so - okay, Me-so wrote a really dumb book, so he might have gone after her first - I honestly remember her saying something vipery against him first, but unless someone wants to revive that old chestnut, that would be an outlier.

In the SF thing, though, none of his so called victims were ever even addressed by him until after they attacked him. In fact, I think someone once made links to the first shots of every one of these players: the Hayden twins (Chang and Engels), McRapey, McCreepy, and that Puppeteer.

I mean...I don't care how crazy you are...no one enlists a puppeteer for an enemy. They come of their own accord, no strings attached.

Rabbits are self-correcting in this way. Vox has had to do almost nothing relative to their spazmoid allergies which set these poor lobotomized prisoners off like a bunch of epileptics at an orgy.

All indications are that Donald Sterling is a nasty piece of work and fully deserves whatever bad comes to him as a result of his private conversation being leaked. Ironically, most of the hand-wringing and insistence that the NBA commish "do something" is supposedly based on the fear that he will discriminate against black players and coaches in his hiring. Since he just last year fired the winningest head coach in Clippers franchise history (Vinnie Del Negro, who was white) and traded a first round pick to hire Doc Rivers (who is black), I'd say this fear is unwarranted. Or maybe Sterling mistakenly believe that Del Negro was black...

It will be interesting to see how the legal aspects shake out as the NBA has now decided that they can ban the guy from managing his own multimillion dollar business for life. Seems like the government may get involved due to the trust aspects as well.

All for raciss crimethink. Guess he could use a copy of the witch-hunt post.

Ashley,Sperling thinks his girlfriend is "a delicate white" woman, so making that mistake about the fired coach would not surprise me.

Vox is politicizing the uproar for the rabbit warren simply because he stood his ground and did not cave when they got their lumpy little backs all puckered up. Did not matter that they started it all in the first place, they expected Vox to cave and he did not. So the water torture has begun. Death by a million drips.

Daniel: "Except he did nothing of the sort to my knowledge. Rabbits didn't like him initially because he was not a rabbit. [...] Vox has had to do almost nothing relative to their spazmoid allergies which set these poor lobotomized prisoners off like a bunch of epileptics at an orgy."

I was trying to be facetious and say the same thing. As Vox mentioned above, it is who he is and what he represents that is the problem for them. His mere existence is their justification for acting in the manner that they accuse him of causing. I wasn't trying to imply that he actually did anything except show up at the party (e.g., the Hugo Awards), and this unleashed their psychosis.

Ain: "They've already proven over the last few months that they would just turn on each other over minor thought-crimes."

I stand corrected. This does appear to be the pattern when there isn't a more immediate target for them to fixate on.

everybodyhatesscott: What's the best course of action? Argue against them? Move on to greener pastures? They have to ruin hockey with social justice.

Depends on how confrontational you want to be. I think you should black knight them. Start posting articles to conservative websites; link to blogposts here. When people call you out on the "no politics" rule, remind them that you're not the only one doing it. Force them to either enforce their own policy or publicly betray their leftist double standards.

They never see the true source and cause of their pain and discomfort. Libs and people like them will always blame the Light or the Truth for ruining their party. Reality, Authority, God, whatever they might call it that particular day.

Once you see them for what they are, it is truly amazing how predictable they are, and truly amazing how childish and jejune they are. Literally it akin to a 5 year old going into hysterics because an adult tells him that he can't play cowboys and indians any longer and must come inside to eat dinner. It really is that simple. THey wish to keep playing in their sandbox of delusions. Anyone with a semblance of maturity or an eye for the objectively realistic is a massive, massive threat to them. And predictably they lash out with full emotive force in an attempt to get their way.

Davey Gerrold appears to have been one of the early pioneers of SF porn, especially in The Man Who Folded Himself which featured gay self-incest via time travel. I believe that he's on the side of the rabbits.

Blaming VD is wrong but understandable if you don't' think about it too much.

The powder keg was getting packed with explosives for years but the fuse wasn't lit until VD (apparently) refused an invitation to commit ritual suicide for the good of SFWA and they had to go about the distasteful business of publicly executing him.

Everybody finally had to acknowledge what had been happening to SFWA for years. I think this was pretty hard for the old guard.

Not that David Gerrold is a member of the old guard.. Let's get that one straight. Google him and only two things show up Tribbles and the Sleestak.

How could the NBA force somebody to sell something that belongs to them, not the NBA? I realize that the Clippers play in the league, but isn't the team considered Sterling's property? I hope we get a lawyer or two with opinions on this because this just somehow doesn't seem right to purge the guy, even though he probably deserves it.

This response is to be expected. You see it all the time from not just liberals but from "moderates" and RINOs. If the liberals attack, smear, defame, Conservatives, well that's OK... or at least not worthy of any notice. But if conservatives, like Palin or Coulter for example, launch a counter-attack, the suddenly its "why can't we all get along?" "What's with all this nasty attacks?" "why must everything be so nasty and political?".

The vicious, nasty attacks by liberals, or their shunning and purges of conservatives are just accepted as "normal". Its only when conservatives fight back, that they suddenly get upset at all the fighting.

Now hold on a sec fellas. Something Napoleon said about enemies making mistakes.

I for one want to see where they take the idea that private speakcrime means forfiture of property and nullification of contracts.

Furthermore, I understand there is talk of a blacks-only league. A separate league, but equal if you will. Fascinating. But why should blacks stop white oppression there? Perhaps they will campaign for their own school systems away from white administrators? Their own drug stores? There own towns (we could call them "get out, whitey!" or getows for short). Black only sections on buses, the part furthest away from the bus authority figure? There own water fountains?

I understand the concerns of course, as we all know whites wont be allowed there separate facilities, but please guys, lets watch this trainwreck for a bit before pointing out all the places it went wrong.

I am not following Sterling too closerly, but I haven't really seen any evidence the guy is a racist. I mean he was sticking it in a mexican-black whore, and didn't care that she was sleeping with other men. He just didn't want evidence of her cuckolding public because it was embarrassing him at the country club.

Yes he discriminated against Hispanics/Blacks trying to rent his K-town apartments, but he had a legitimate business reason to do so. Koreans haven't drunk the diversity koolaid, particularly poor/illegal ones and they don't want to live in a mixed race apartment building with low income blacks and hispanics. Seeing as how he is supposedly a slumlord of sorts its probably the key selling point of an otherwise crappy arrangement.

I glanced at the NBA bylaws, and I don't think they can force him to sell the team. They might try, but at a min he will be able to tie that thing up in court for half a decade or more. He might even have a cause against the NBA if they made such a move. Which is probably what the NBA owners have all agreed to behind the scenes. Tie it up in court until he either dies or nobody is paying attention and quietly drop it.

The reprehensibility of Sterling's personal points of view is only partially relevant. I'm skeptical of whether it is within the NBA's contractual purview to nullify a team owners reasonable presumption of privacy in order to levy fines and other sanctions intended explicitly as punishments. On the other hand, various degrees and methods of shunning might be a completely different matter. After all, the NBA should have the freedom to discriminate in their associations too. Beyond that, let the markets sort it out.

Comments are funny on the internet. If Vox posts about Sports its "Why we discussing playing a child's game, when Serious issue X, is in the new?". If Vox ignores some Sports story, then a serious post is full of comments about some OT sports story.

LL April 30, 2014 12:15 AMHe's been "banned" from the NBA according to what I have read ... I am curious as to how that works.

owners usually watch the game in an 'owners box' luxury suite. certainly, he will be banned from using these at other stadiums around the country when the team is traveling.

most owners would probably be more difficult to keep out of their own luxury boxes for home games ... but the Clippers share the stadium with the Lakers. Sterling doesn't ( so far as i know ) have any ownership shares in the corp that administers the Staples Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staples_Center

the REALLY interesting thing is that i would think that the bimbo has just made it worthwhile for Sterling to sue her.

you see, she didn't just commit a crime by recording him without his knowledge ...

owners usually watch the game in an 'owners box' luxury suite. certainly, he will be banned from using these at other stadiums around the country when the team is traveling.

I don't know where he watches the games from normally, but the pictures that showed up in a couple of the articles have him in floor seats.

Comments are funny on the internet. If Vox posts about Sports its "Why we discussing playing a child's game, when Serious issue X, is in the new?". If Vox ignores some Sports story, then a serious post is full of comments about some OT sports story.

Basketball is silly. Some guy not just getting fired, but being forced to divest his property, possibly at a reduced value, because of private badthink is pretty Fing serious.

Also the pace at which we seem to be attacking people for badthink appears to be accelerating. They just claimed Eich head a couple weeks ago. But there were months between Phil, Paula, and CFA.

---

Forbes estimates the Clippers generate 15 million of profit on 130 million in revenue and is valued around 575 million (it is schedule to get a new TV contract in 2015), and apparently Sterling declined to sell it for 600 million a couple years ago (he paid 12.5 million for the team in 1981 putting the annual ROI at around 13% plus income).

Being forced to sell probably has some pretty serious tax consequences relative to whatever lawyer loopholes they had previously worked in during a planned wealth transfer.

" Cataline SergiusApril 29, 2014 9:59 PM...Not that David Gerrold is a member of the old guard.. Let's get that one straight. Google him and only two things show up Tribbles and the Sleestak. "

You mean he wrote "Land of the Lost" episodes? Gah! No wonder the Sleestak were such lame villains. All that hissing and dragging of feet on the ground while taking the smallest steps possible. And those stupid tiny crossbows, I think they could shoot maybe ten feet.

In looking at IMDB it looks like he wrote 17 episodes.

But to be fair, Larry Niven wrote 3 episodesand the following wrote 1 episode a piece:Ben Bova D.C. Fontana Walter Koenig Norman Spinrad Theodore Sturgeon

Just ignore Gerrold. His career achievements are sticking Trek fans with "Tribbles" and coming up with the Sleestak on "Land of the Lost." He also made a HUGE point of discussing the idiots who thought Kirk and Spock were homosexual lovers in his "World of Star Trek" book from the 1970s and 80s. The guy is a no talent fool

I loved the early War Against the Chtorr books. Gerrold should get off his arse and finish the series instead of trash talking people who are actually delivering on their promises.

20 years ago I would have enthusiasticly agreed.10 years ago I would have agreed.5 years ago I would have at least looked them over.But I realized sometime in the past year while reading about someone was uninterested in very late Kickstarter RPGs that I'd reached the same point with that series. I had bought the first book just as the last one came out and tore through them in a couple of weeks (very fast for me). Now I doubt I'd even notice a new one.

David Gerrold is a perfectly fine writer. In addition to the books and scripts mentioned above, he wrote for a cartoon in the 1980's, filmation's TARZAN which (in my humble opinion) was one of the more interesting adaptation. Also, THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF is a very clever time travel story which I don't mind recommending.

"Wow..normally I'm on the side of the anti-Scalzi brigade, but Correia, Reynolds, etc. pretending Hugo issue isn't about Vox Day is bizarre."

Is it as bizarre as being in an uproar over Mr. Correia's Hugo nomination, not because of the merit or demerit of the work, but only because Mr. Correia touched a leper, and hence is himself ritually unclean?

Alpha Ralpha Boulevardier April 30, 2014 6:00 PMWhat is it about that book you find worthy of recommendation?

uhhhhh, it's the most well thought out time travel novel i've ever read?

sure, the whole 'have sex with alt-time versions of myself because the self is the most sexually attractive thing the self can conceive of' kind of lampshades the queerness of the author ... also, basically okays incest ( both of which [ bi-sex and incest ] Heinlein had been doing for years ).

if you can get past Heinlein's sexual degeneracy, i don't see why Gerrold should cause you problems.

uhhhhh, it's the most well thought out time travel novel i've ever read?

Ok. So how many time travel novels have you ever read?

sure, the whole 'have sex with alt-time versions of myself because the self is the most sexually attractive thing the self can conceive of' kind of lampshades the queerness of the author ... also, basically okays incest

The novel is basically a narcissistic masturbatory fantasy bookended with thin plotting that rips off a Heinlein story (that wasn't all that good itself).

if you can get past Heinlein's sexual degeneracy, i don't see why Gerrold should cause you problems.

Given that I find later Heinlein to be unreadable drivel that sorely needed a decent editor, this comment is moot.

i have no idea how many of those involved time travel but it's not exactly an unknown trope in SF.

Alpha Ralpha Boulevardier April 30, 2014 6:44 PMGiven that I find later Heinlein to be unreadable drivel that sorely needed a decent editor

given that Heinlein was showing those kinds of behaviors in some of his most respected works ( Moon is a Harsh Mistress - 66, Stranger in a Strange Land - 61 ) as well as the first thing he ever wrote ( For Us, the Living - 39 ), you're going to have to restrict yourself to his juveniles to avoid it.

Stanger in a Strange Land was the first Heinlein book I read. I basically wrote him off after that. I mean to one of these days try Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers because people like you keep saying they are really good but your description of this Gerrold book makes me think its more like a Lazarus Long book and that was to much for me. So I am going to have to say Gerrold is a never read author.

Blume May 01, 2014 12:30 AMStanger in a Strange Land was the first Heinlein book I read. I basically wrote him off after that.

Stranger is far more similar to the stuff he was publishing in the 70s-80s after he had started to have serious problems with vein blockages in his head. Stranger, while famous due to it's popularity with hippies, is probably the single worst book to use as an introduction to Heinlein.

you can easily ignore everything published after Moon is a Harsh Mistress ( 1967, i include 'For Us...' in this as it was not published until 03, despite having been written in 39 ) and not be missing anything important.